Telegram hands over the ton.org domain to independent developers

The team behind the now-defunct blockchain project Telegram Open Network (TON) handed over the ton.org domain and the GitHub repository to an independent community of developers known as The Open Network (formerly NewTON Blockchain).

The decision was made following an open letter from the latter to Telegram.

“We are pleased to see the community’s sustained interest in supporting and developing TON technology. Since Telegram itself no longer participates in the project and we no longer use the related resources, we are prepared to consider transferring them to a representative of the community for further use,” wrote the Telegram Open Network team on GitHub.

In a ForkLog comment, one of the project’s participants, Anatoly, said they intend to use the domain as the main site for the community and the project.

“The project is under development. The blockchain is fully functioning. We will develop toward realising our mission — to create a network that unites all major blockchains and the Internet,” he said.

The TON Coin native token supply stands at 5 billion coins. The number of accounts in the network has surpassed 70,000.

In the coming months, the project team will announce the integration of TON Coin into a number of blockchain companies.

“We are disappointed that Telegram was forced to withdraw from participating in the TON project in 2020. However, the community will continue to develop the technology underlying TON,” statement by The Open Network.

As previously reported, Pavel Durov halted work on TON in May 2020 due to a dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Around the same time, TON developers submitted the final changes to the project’s source code, and by August 1 disabled the network’s own testnet validators.

The NewTON Blockchain testnet, built on the Telegram Open Network protocol, was launched in May 2020. It is supported by more than 30 independent developers, including the winners of TON Blockchain Contests. A year later, the testnet2, launched by the Telegram team in 2019, became the project’s mainnet.

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